Characterizing and Measuring Visual Information Literacy

Visual Information Literacy is the ability to properly process information related to data graphics, i.e., encoding information into data graphics and decoding information from data graphics. Cognitive models help hypothesize, analyze, and assess how individuals understand complex concepts (declarative knowledge) and apply skills (procedural knowledge), also by means of their literacy level, throughout their active lifetime. Many literacy assessment tests, based on cognitive tasks, became a standard measuring instrument of student’s literacy with texts and with numbers. For graphicacy, a standard model and measurement test is still missing.